The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is re-evaluating its membership in the Unity: Journalists for Diversity coalition, citing reasons of governance, finances and mission, the same reasons the National Association of Black Journalists listed when it pulled out two years ago.

On Saturday, NAHJ President Hugo Balta confirmed his statements in the Latino Reporter, a student project at the NAHJ convention in Anaheim, Calif., reporting that the NAHJ board discussed NAHJ's relationship with Unity during closed-door sessions on Friday and that the discussion will eventually open up to all NAHJ members in a future town hall meeting, possibly in September.

"Two voices are stronger than one," Balta told reporter Maria Camila Bernal. "But regardless of my personal feelings and philosophical feelings about UNITY, I need to protect and defend and champion the best interest of NAHJ."

NABJ left amid concerns about how the Unity proceeds were split among the partner organizations — then NAHJ, the Asian American Journalists Association and the Native American Journalists Association; governance and transparency issues; and a feeling by some NABJ members that Unity had strayed too far from its origins as an umbrella organization that staged conventions and become a year-round fifth organization that competed with them for funds.

When NABJ departed, the remaining Unity groups invited the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association to join, and changed the coalition's name from the race-based Unity: Journalists of Color, Inc., to Unity: Journalists for Diversity.

Paul Cheung, national president of AAJA, said Saturday that AAJA has concerns about Unity's governance just as it has with concerns about its own organization, which created an AAJA committee on governance. If there are issues, "it's important to get back to the table," Cheung told Journal-isms at AAJA's convention in New York.

However, he added, "The issue of diversity can't be solved by any one organization. We need to have a unified strategy."

Doris Truong, Chung's predecessor as AAJA national president, now acting president of Unity, told Yumi Araki in the AAJA convention newspaper that Unity should expand to include organizations that aren't defined by race or ethnicity.

"UNITY has to reflect a changing society," Truong said in AAJA Voices. "Look at some of the top stories of recent months: immigration and LGBT rights. In a lot of ways, LGBT issues are the civil rights concerns of our time." Truong told Journal-isms that she was quoted accurately.

NAHJ is meeting in Anaheim, Calif., as part of the Excellence in Journalism convention with the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association. In recent social media posts directed at the Excellence in Journalism attendees, Balta referred to this [year's] EIJ conference as the "Unity in Anaheim," the Latino Reporter said.

NBC News correspondent Ann Curry told the Asian American Journalists Association Saturday night that when she began her career in a small town, "I felt like I was the only Asian." She was responding to the question, "When are you Asian American?" and said, "I really want to thank you because what made me feel less alone was knowing you were coming.

"I could hear you. It made me want to create a space, a bigger space for you. . . . Just remember that you're not alone. You are creating a space and you can always feel that they're coming. And it's a great joy to know that."

Curry, 56, born in Guam to a Japanese mother and a white American father, participated in a question-and-answer session with Richard Lui, anchor and correspondent for NBC and MSNBC, at a convention that AAJA National President Paul Cheung told the audience had attracted 1,300 people.

She emphasized that journalism was becoming interactive and that "to not be online as a journalist is to say goodbye to all your future readers."

Emphasizing her love of international stories, Curry said she had broken the story that 1 million Syrian children were in refugee camps or otherwise dispersed as a result of Syria's civil war. Now, she said, "We're going to find that story about children and give them a voice. Imagine if it was your children, your child. That's how you should report, with that kind of sensitivity and ear. Don't look at them as some person over there. Look at them as a human being, no less than you, or anyone you love. This is the way to really find that story."

She concluded, "I hope you do find a way to do journalism that will be transformative. I remember feeling lonely and now look at all of you. It's such a pleasure to be here."

Co-emcee Vivian Lee, an anchor and reporter at New York cable channel NY1, told Curry that "AAJA loves you," and the audience cheered.

The New York Times has accepted recommendations from the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association on identifying Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the leaker of government documents who says he now wants to be known as Chelsea Manning, NLGJA said on Saturday.

"Things that are simple in most stories get tricky when writing about transgender subjects, particularly names and pronouns. As per AP style, one should use the name and pronouns that someone prefers. It's not about drivers' licenses or birth certificates. Because of Manning's name recognition, we suggest that she be referenced as 'US Army Private Chelsea Manning, who formerly went by the name Bradley.'

"It is not about surgeries and hormones. If a person wants to talk about these very personal topics, fine, but one's gender identity and right to be respected aren't dependent on taking such actions, nor are these necessarily public topics.

"Avoid playing into stereotypes. Not all trans people are seeking to become the archetype of the gender to which they are transitioning. And, at the same time, lots of people who don't change gender aren't necessarily the physical epitome of what one thinks of as a man or woman. Avoid subjective assessments of how someone passes."

The association said later in its release, "Please consider that words matter. Research has shown that LGBT teens and young adults have one of the highest rates of all suicide attempts. Depression and drug use among LGBT people have both been shown to increase significantly after new laws that discriminate against gay people are passed. Bullying of LGBT youth has been shown to be a contributing factor in many suicides, even if not all of the attacks have been specifically addressing sexuality or gender. . . ."

Fulfilling predictions, NBCUniversal's decision to begin paying its interns last spring led to more diversity in its intern class, Craig Robinson, executive vice president and chief diversity officer of NBCUniversal, disclosed on Friday.

Advocates of paid internship programs have long maintained that unpaid internships discriminate against students of color and those without well-heeled parents.

Robinson, who is black and Asian American, spoke at the Asian American Journalists Association convention in New York, where registration rose to at least 1,150, Kathy Chow, AAJA executive director, told Journal-isms, larger than attendance by AAJA members at last year's Unity convention in Las Vegas or AAJA's stand-alone conference in 2011 in Detroit.

Appearing on a panel with fellow diversity executives Crystal Johns, director of talent development and diversity for CBS News, who is African American, and Ramon Escobar, vice president of talent recruitment and development for CNN Worldwide, who is Hispanic, Robinson and his colleagues also said:

The word "diversity" itself is being reevaluated. At NBC Universal, Robinson said, the concept is now referred to as "diversity and inclusion" to reflect that the underlying issue is "who's at the table." Escobar said, "Diversity needs to be treated as a verb, not a noun. I think you do diversity. The word itself cannot be toxic. If you're not diverse, don't be scared of diversity, and if you are diverse, don't make it scary."

The failure of people of color to seek and train for middle management jobs has left journalists of color out of the loop when many of those positions are filled. "I have done outreach, and we ended up with very few or no applicants [of color] for the really terrific jobs," Robinson said. "We're not finding enough producers." By contrast, "We have more on-air candidates than we have on-air jobs."

The Internet is competing with broadcasting for the attention of those just starting their careers. A month ago, Robinson said, he went to a meeting of the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment and was told, "What makes you think we want to go into broadcasting?" "They're going to other forms of media" that are perceived as more compatible with their generation, Robinson said.

The African American audience is "extremely attractive" to television executives because blacks "overindex" in television watching. "The Asian American is largely online," Robinson said, and "underindexes television watching by 20 to 30 percent." Since audiences tune in to see people like themselves, "Who am I really going to choose" in hiring?" Robinson said. The issue is "how to bring that Asian American audience back to TV. Broadcasting is still where we make most of our money," Robinson said.

"While we don't share specific personnel figures publicly, we have been pleased with the increase in the ethnic diversity of our intern population, and we look forward to continued growth," Robinson told Journal-isms in a follow-up email.

However, an NBC News recruiter said students from such colleges as Mississippi State University, who could not previously afford to take an unpaid job in New York, are now applying.

Friday's panelists underscored the importance of making diversity a companywide priority and of journalists to become what Escobar called "holistic." For Escobar, CNN's website has become a place to find those with the skills to to work on other CNN platforms, he said. Robinson told the audience he urges colleagues to have "recruitment parties" instead of mixers, with the price of admission a candidate for one of the top 10 jobs open at the time.

In the wake of embarrassing racial and cultural gaffes by some of its journalists, ESPN has begun cultural sensitivity sessions that have so far attracted about 100 ESPN staffers, Jackson Davis, ESPN's director of diversity & inclusion, said Friday.

"The goal of it at the end of the day is our effort to be as inclusive as we can be," Davis told Journal-isms from the ESPN recruiting booth at the Asian American Journalists Association convention in New York. ESPN wants to be "smarter about what hot buttons can exist, about race, religion and gender."

Davis, who has worked as a diversity executive at other organizations, said the four sessions have used external facilitators. They look at stories ESPN and other organziations have covered and explore "how we can improve our coverage as the worldwide leader in sport."

An ESPN staffer disclosed existence of the sessions from the audience at a workshop on "The Year in AAJA Media Watch," at which ESPN was generally praised for its quick responses to racial gaffes and missteps.

She cited a story from 2002 in a major daily that said Yao Ming, the Chinese-born former NBA player, would have "egg all over his chopsticks" and "is going to end up with egg fu young all over this face."

"What are you going to say when someone whacks him in his chopsticks?" the writer also asked.

When moderator Bobby Caina Calvan asked why so many of the gaffes are committed by sportswriters, Sachin Shenolikar, a senior editor at Sports Illustrated Kids, replied that "a lot of sports journalists feel the need to be stand-up comedians on Twitter" and said, "It does add to their persona, their personal brand."

Some in the audience, such as Lori Matsukawa of KING-TV in Seattle, said such incidents ought to be teachable moments.

One person's humor is another's insensitivity, as some have discovered. AAJA named Richard Lui, a reporter and anchor for NBC and MSNBC, its "member of the year." In making the announcement Thursday, Ken Moritsugu, the association's vice president for print, cited an essay that Lui wrote about the fake Asian names read on the air KTVU-TV in the Bay Area.

"My immigrant grandparents were named Lui Lee, and Quock Yuen Jow," Lui wrote for NBCLatino. "A hundred years ago, they endured plays on their names. In the 1980s, I even ridiculed Asian names. I wasn't Long Duk Dong. I was different; I was born here and didn't have a funny name. But then I realized I was mocking my grandparents. 'Funny-named' people come here every day. They shouldn't think acceptance takes a century. Sure, we will make more mistakes along the way. But they should know we are a country that respects more than 26 letters. A union built on names that sound different, look different, and are tough to pronounce. It is our badge of honor, our raison d’être. To be a country of many names."

Randall Yip, a Bay Area broadcaster and founder of asamnews.com, which aggregates news about Asian Americans, spoke up Friday with a complaint that might be familiar to nearly all the journalist of color organizations.

"I also understand how frustrated they are with us," Yip said, speaking of Asian American community members.

"They don't understand it no matter how often you explain it." Journalists are not activists in the sense that some community members would like them to be, Yip said at the Asian American Journalists Association convention in New York. Yet, he said, the organization can do more.

"I don't think AAJA has to issue a statement on everything, but if people are concerned about the statement a DJ made on a radio station, just report it," Yip said from his seat on a Media Watch panel. "That's all we have to do. We're not the spokesmen for the Asian American community, but if we just report the news — we can do it from our [AAJA] website. People come to us. We can be a sounding board for story ideas."

How involved with community members should journalists of color be outside of their reporting? Black journalists used to be asked, "Are you black first or a journalist first?" a false choice.

In March, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists denounced the use of the term "wetback" by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, though it was not said in a journalistic context.

Richard Lui, an NBC and MSNBC reporter and anchor who was named "member of the year" by AAJA, told Journal-isms that AAJA's convention next year, announced Friday as scheduled for the nation's capital, offers an opportunity for AAJA to partner with one or more of the 30 or 40 Asian American groups in Washington. AAJA's founding document, while not urging advocacy, "intimates connection with the community," Lui said.

(Latino, Asian American and African American media have a luxury that many Native Americans do not. Many Native media are owned by their tribes.)

Bob Butler, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, who was attending the AAJA convention, said, "When it comes to creating systemic change in the industry itself, we can't do that ourselves. We need other organizations to advocate."

For their part, the journalists can "tell their stories. They need to have their stories told. They have to be stories that they're going to want to publish. We can do that at our stations and papers."

Paul Cheung, the national AAJA president, was asked at a membership meeting Thursday about partnerships. He said AAJA was "talking to a variety of different partners perhaps for workshops or the entire convention" next year. But he said the group must be cautious.

Will they work "culturally and economically?" Cheung asked. "Strategically, does it make sense?" Are the organizations' goals compatible? "We have to think about what it is we're after. Whether the training is the same. Whether the way we engage the community is the same.

"Whitlock actually is embarking on a noble mission," Sherman continued. "He will be assisting in the launch and will be the featured columnist in a new ESPN website that will be aimed at minority sports fans. He referred to the site as 'a Black Grantland,' which generated some headlines. But there's more at play here.

" 'I want to try to engage all sports fans, particularly minority sports fans, in a conversation about sports,' Whitlock said in the podcast.

"Now here's the kicker: the site will be looking to hire and develop young African-American sportswriters. It's hardly news that the profession has a dramatic shortage there. . . ."

Sherman also said, "ESPN president John Skipper addressed the new site during media day in Bristol Wednesday.

" 'We have lots and lots of African-American talent at ESPN.com, but we don't have a place where it's an African-American-themed, or centric, site, where that conversation can take place…We’re going to do a talent search. We're going to do what espnW did in identifying female reporters. Jason is going to help us look for new, young African-American sportswriters.'. . . "

"The trade press has reported a number of big transactions in recent weeks, but we see virtually no African American or other minority buyers, [PDF]" James L. Winston, executive director and general counsel of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, Inc., said Tuesday. "In radio, within the past year, no less than 20 radio stations that were owned by African Americans were forced into bankruptcy by their lenders and have subsequently been sold to non-minority purchasers. The failure of these lenders to reach out to minority purchasers, particularly in light of the anemic pace for sales to minorities in general, suggests that radio has regressed back to the pre-1978 days, when minorities were never given an opportunity to participate as station owners. The potential impact on the African American community cannot be overstated. We are losing our voices, sale by sale. . . ." As reported in July, commentator and entrepreneur Armstrong Williams, who is African American, expects to buy WMMP-TV in Charleston, S.C., his home state, from Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.

Richard Prince's Journal-isms originates from Washington and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It began in print before most of us knew what the Internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a "column." For newcomers: The words in blue (on most computers) are links leading to more information. The Web site BugMeNot.com provides passwords and user names to some registration-only news sites, but use may be illegal in some states. Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity.

Comments

If NAHJ pulls out, that's game over. There will be no further reason for UNITY to exist.

But this is what made me raise an eyebrow like Mr. Spock:

Doris Truong, Chung's predecessor as AAJA national president, now acting president of Unity, told Yumi Araki in the AAJA convention newspaper that Unity should expand to include organizations that aren't defined by race or ethnicity.

"UNITY has to reflect a changing society," Truong said in AAJA Voices. "Look at some of the top stories of recent months: immigration and LGBT rights. In a lot of ways, LGBT issues are the civil rights concerns of our time." Truong told Journal-isms that she was quoted accurately.

So what is Truong saying? Race no longer matters as "the civil rights concerns of our time?" Maybe in HER time, but as an Black man in America, it still matters a helluva lot to me! UNITY seems to be more concerned in seeking new partners to join it than whether or not their missions and interests are mutual or shared.

I'm not minimizing LGBT issues having a place within UNITY's concerns, but if as UNITY's president Truong? is saying race no long does, she's not just sadly mistaken, she's flat out wrong.

50 years after Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech, the Dream is not yet realized. We are not living in a post-racial America and we have not overcome. As NAHJ seems to be looking for an exit strategy, Truong seemingly believes differently.

If NAHJ pulls out, that's game over. There will be no further reason for UNITY to exist.

But this is what made me raise an eyebrow like Mr. Spock:

Doris Truong, Chung's predecessor as AAJA national president, now acting president of Unity, told Yumi Araki in the AAJA convention newspaper that Unity should expand to include organizations that aren't defined by race or ethnicity.

"UNITY has to reflect a changing society," Truong said in AAJA Voices. "Look at some of the top stories of recent months: immigration and LGBT rights. In a lot of ways, LGBT issues are the civil rights concerns of our time." Truong told Journal-isms that she was quoted accurately.

So what is Truong saying? Race no longer matters as "the civil rights concerns of our time?" Maybe in HER time, but as an Black man in America, it still matters a helluva lot to me! UNITY seems to be more concerned in seeking new partners to join it than whether or not their missions and interests are mutual or shared.

I'm not minimizing LGBT issues having a place within UNITY's concerns, but if as UNITY's president Truong? is saying race no long does, she's not just sadly mistaken, she's flat out wrong.

50 years after Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech, the Dream is not yet realized. We are not living in a post-racial America and we have not overcome. As NAHJ seems to be looking for an exit strategy, Truong seemingly believes differently.

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